Posted May 25, 2020

Has My Business Been Scammed? How Businesses Are Targeted And What Fraud Signs You Should Look Out For?

In 2018 criminals stole £1.2 billion through fraud and scams.  With a lot of businesses currently working remotely and staff having access to documents and emails at home, fraudsters are increasingly targeting businesses with staff working remotely.  Here are three main ways fraudsters are tricking businesses and staff into parting with cash.

Beware business fraud and scams

Invoice Fraud

Invoice fraud occurs when you are tricked into updating a legitimate supplier’s bank details.  It is often only discovered when your supplier chases you for payments that you have already made.

As the finance industry invest in advanced security and fraud detection, criminal gangs are increasingly targeting authorised push payment (APP) fraud where the victim is tricked into sending money from their account to the account under the criminal’s control.

If you receive an email or letter from a supplier notifying you of a change in bank details, always call the number you have on file (not the one on the letter or email) to check that the details have changed.

Bogus Emails

A member of staff receives an e-mail pretending to be a senior member of staff requesting they arrange an urgent payment outside of their normal procedure due to exceptional circumstances.

We have also seen situations where the payroll department have been emailed requesting changes to staff bank details.

As with invoice fraud, always call to check with the person that the change of bank details or the urgent payment is genuine using a phone number you already have on file.

We would recommend that you change your email password regularly and use a combination of letters, number and special characters.

Ransomware

Ransomware is a software that gives criminals access to your computer that allows them to lock your computer remotely.  The criminals will lock the computer and inform you that it will only be unlocked if you pay a large sum of money.

To avoid Ransomware, you should follow these simple steps:

• Only visit websites you know and trust to be safe
• Ensure you have efficient and upto date Anti-virus software and a firewall
• Don’t open attachments on suspicious emails or text messages
• Regularly back-up your computer to a remote storage device. This device should be stored separately to your computer as ransomware can also affect cloud-based storage.

Also read another one of our great fraud related blog posts – SCAM! Is my call from HMRC a scam?